Country Overview

Anglicanism was never the official state religion of the colony, but it tended to be seen as such in practice. The Church Act of 1836 was an effort to treat religions equally by providing financial aid to all religions. Sectarianism, however, was never far away. When the churches refused to give up their rights to run their own religious schools, the government withdrew financial funding in the 1870s, declaring that education should be "free, secular, and compulsory."

Although in Australia all Christian denominations came to be treated equally, the settlers and governments did not recognize indigenous religion, so Indigenous Australians were condemned as having no religion. Attempts were made to proselytize to the indigenous peoples; when these failed, efforts were redirected into...